


America’s To-Do List

by AsWeAreNow



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsWeAreNow/pseuds/AsWeAreNow
Summary: America tackles his to-do list, which holds nothing too important. He’s already done everything productive, after all.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	America’s To-Do List

**Author's Note:**

> First appeared on 17 August 2020, on FFN. Crossposted from my account of the same name.

America's attention span was almost nonexistent unless he really put his mind to something, and as it was he was really, really bad at finishing leisure activities. America still spent a lot of money- hundreds of dollars every year- on puzzles, books, video games, etc. You name it, he spent money on it. His to-do list typically looked like this:

_1\. Finish all the books you've started._

_2\. Play all the video games you haven't played yet._

_3\. Go through your storage room._

_4\. Donate all the things you don't want anymore._

_5\. Apologize._

And while it was true that there was nothing important on the list, America had a good defense. He'd spent the first two hundred years or so doing important things: traveling, renovating his house, learning different languages, holding his country together. His list had once been much more noble, but now it consisted of leisure and forgetting as that was all there was left to do.

America was let go from his office job during the pandemic and his boss hated him, which meant he had plenty of free time. He would tackle everything on this list with American determination!

* * *

The first thing America did was play through _GRIS_. It was a very beautiful game and America enjoyed it thoroughly; it was rather relaxing, even though America really sucked at it. He didn't really pick up on the underlying themes of the game like anyone else might, mostly because grief no longer took up so much of his time. It was still a nice game and America felt the urge to replay it. He didn't because he had other games to finish as well.

...

America enjoyed _Marvel's Spider-Man_ a lot more. Perhaps that was wrong, but why not? They made New York City look so beautiful and the animation was very realistic. It was an action game without much blood or gore, which was somewhat rare. (America had been on a bit of a kick a while back, buying games that had little or no amounts of gore. It wasn't that he cared too much; he'd just gotten bored of it. So that had included games like _GRIS_ , but also _Marvel's Spider-Man_.) And besides, he loved beating up bad guys. That wasn't really something you were supposed to do in real life unless they were threatening you or someone near you, but just showing up and beating the shit out of them? Amazing- that was what America had always wanted! America didn't like sneaking around as much; he preferred swinging from building to building and beating up terrorists/criminal organizations/general bad dudes. It was still fun to sneak around and take pictures, mostly because it was more challenging. But mostly America enjoyed the game because he thought he'd way prefer swinging around to super strength.

...

The last game America played was _Undertale_ , and that one was pretty cool too. America didn't quite see the hype, but it was definitely worth the money and the characters were rather endearing. He'd have to replay it some time to try and get all the endings.

* * *

Maybe America would skip reading for now; after finishing _Undertale_ , he was a bit fidgety. America decided he would clean his storage room, finally, and then he would drive his shit to Goodwill before he had the chance to change his mind.

America spent the entire night in his storage room just being sad. He forced himself not to dwell on memories of and before the Revolutionary War, but he couldn't stop himself from sitting on the ground and hugging an old teddy bear and moping a bit. Soon he realized he was being childish, hugging a teddy bear and crying like this. How much could it matter to him? He'd have to donate it.

...

Okay, second item America noticed (aside from his Revolutionary War crap): A box filled with American paraphernalia: hats, a shirt with mini flags attached to the sleeves, gloves, a coat, a deck of cards, a full suit... most of it violated the flag code, and America knew that, but he didn't really care. He was a patriotic boy and if his citizens were going to do it he could do it too. This could get him murdered in another country (if he was a human, anyway) and therefore it was very patriotic.

America took the box to his room and put on the suit and a fedora and gloves. He hyped himself up a bit- "Oh yeah, Yanks" and "Snazzy as heck" being the main phrases he used to do so- and then took a picture in front of his mirror and posted it to Twitter.

America found an American pair of boots wedged somewhat disrespectfully at the bottom of the box. Now he remembered what this was for. He reached into the bottom boot and, indeed, there was the book on communism. It wasn't written by a communist, just some random dead professor, but America had hidden it anyway because he'd wanted to understand his enemy as much as possible without having to go near Russia or the rest of his clique. America didn't agree with communism- 'didn't agree' was a major understatement- but that had been all the better reason to try not to get deported at the time. Of course once the raids had been started it had been made clear to America that he didn't really have too many rights like the rest of his citizens so long as they were cowards, nor did his citizens have rights so long as it wasn't happening to them.

America frowned. That wasn't nearly as fun, was it? But now that he was still in the country all these years later he could laugh on it. What had he been worried about, really? His President would've stepped in and been like 'Yo, what the fuck, he's literally America'. Not to mention that books about communism written by non-communists were fine, but seeing as America had to interact with the entire Soviet group during the Second World War- well, perhaps it was good that he'd been careful. That Palmer guy was a crazy asshole, and sure, America was- oh right, _America_ \- but he'd been worried that wouldn't be enough, even if he wasn't Italian or really anything worth worrying about at all.

None of that mattered now, as America looked, for lack of better word, hella good. (The only 'young person' slang America had picked up was contemporary Californian slang, and he'd never learned anything else.) He tossed the book onto his bed and pulled the boots on and took another picture, just of the boots, which had the American Stars and Stripes on them.

America had assembled this box out of something like pure fear, but now he was having the absolute time of his life. Nothing made him happier than his country, but not even that because his government was seemingly always doing stupid or malicious shit and his people were... well, not as bad, but of course they were people and thus still horrible (such was human nature).

Correction: Nothing made him happier than loving his country despite all of its (his) faults, because in the end that was all he was. He would never be anything more than all of the bad wrapped in/mixed with freedom and liberty and justice and and great scenery and defense spending and cheap food and statistical diversity and hard work, like a piece of dog shit wrapped in a particularly fatty piece of bacon.

America posted the photo of his boots to Instagram and decided that was enough cleaning for today.

...

The next day he returned to his storage room. Almost immediately he found a delicate sculpture of a cherry blossom tree, painted accordingly. Japan had given it to him a long time ago when he'd gifted the country 3,000 cherry blossom trees. America needed to return this gift; America had sent Japan dogwoods as a return gift, but he'd never given the personification himself anything in return. He would have to think of something, but first he would have to look for somewhere to put this. It had hidden in his storage room since Pearl Harbor, and America had forgotten about it until now.

He looked around the storage room, trying not to really notice anything. That was enough work on the storage room for now; America would get rid of his teddy bear and that would be a miracle since he was a bit of a hoarder. He crossed _Go through your storage room_ off the list.

* * *

Next thing on the list: give the teddy bear away. Looking at it now, he couldn't bear to donate it with no chance of ever seeing it or its new owner ever again. He would have to give it to another personification... who was the youngest personification he knew? Sealand?

Sealand was a nice boy, but America didn't really know him too well. Besides, now that he thought about it, Sealand wasn't technically the youngest personification America knew...

...

"Hey, Molossia! Molossia, bro! Dude!" America got out of the rental car and started running toward him. America had taken a flight down and across to Nevada, a quick day trip, just for this. He'd brought a book with him to try to read on the flight, but as soon as America had gotten through the John F. Kennedy International Airport's security, he noticed that he had a really, really bad headache.

Anyway, they'd met in a Walmart parking lot, and since it was Nevada and really hot America wanted to get this over with. Molossia was a real jerk these days, but America figured he would appreciate the gift. He was an American, after all. (America didn't push it, but Molossia knew what he thought.)

"What do you want?" Molossia sounded cold, but America didn't mind. He knew that Molossia didn't really mean it.

Molossia seemed at home in the Nevadan sun. America supposed that he was, too, but not quite so much. He lived in New York for a reason. "I wanted to give you a teddy bear." America held the bear out with one hand. "You're the youngest personification I know personally, and I thought you would, um, appreciate it."

"You don't know me personally," Molossia told him. Truly America's little punk.

"So, anyway," America continued, "I wanted you to have the teddy bear. His name is... Theodore..." America fell silent for just a moment and then pushed forward, "but you can call him whatever you want. I can't control you."

"Of course you can't. I'd like to see you fuckin' try."

America just smiled at that. He wished Molossia wouldn't swear; more specifically he wished Molossia wouldn't swear at him- he had an opinion that only adults, or in this case real nations, should be allowed to swear at other people. To be fair, he also wished that Molossia wouldn't dress the way he did, or that America could see his eyes every once in a while, but that was really lame. America didn't want to be Molossia's version of England, so he never voiced any of it. All Molossia knew was that America didn't really think of him as a nation, only a personification, and that was enough to put strain on any conversation.

Molossia took the teddy bear from him, inspecting it carefully. America had patched it up and filled it with new stuffing, given it a good wash- the whole works, really. "Thanks," Molossia said, raising the bear slightly in acknowledgement. The micronation turned and went back to his car.

Molossia was a good kid, all things considered, and America wished he would be kinder. America went back to his rental car, delighted to find it only somewhat hot instead of extremely hot, and stretched. He always felt old when around his micronations; America wondered if England had felt the same way when America was a kid- but then, England was an asshole, so probably not.

America missed Teddy.

* * *

Okay, now he could rest easy again! Next, he would finish up some of his books. That ought to be a piece of cake.

He put some of his unfinished books- _The Trial_ , _The Plague_ , _East of Eden_ \- on his nightstand next to the cherry blossom tree sculpture. He regretted not getting _The Trial_ and _The Plague_ in their respective languages; translations just weren't the same.

First book. _The Trial_. America had been reading a page or two of this book every day for some time now; it hadn't really interested him at first, but he'd bought it and he would read it. Initially he hadn't liked it, but now America found himself more and more taken in by it.

America enjoyed it more than he had any right to, seeing as it was supposed to be 'disturbing' or 'eye-opening'. He didn't really take anything from the book; that was the curse of leisure reading.

...

Next book. _The Plague_. It was cool and stuff; Camus was a good writer and America enjoyed his work, but once again nothing really hit home, even after the past pandemic.

...

 _East of Eden_. There was a whole plot; for God's sake, it was a book. For the latter half of the book, the half that he was on now, he didn't focus on the characters but rather the descriptions. He missed California, but he didn't want to go back- same thing with most other states. America was fine here in New York because he watched it become the way it was. Apparently all the states were doing worse than they had been because of those damn Republicans/Democrats/independents/moderates/teenagers. America was sure they were all doing okay, not too much worse than usual, but he didn't want to find out that he was wrong.

He heard Texas was still A-OK; Texas was usually A-OK, so that was good. That was what America had named his glasses after; the one state that was still usually doing alright. He'd have to check it out before he was forced back into his NYC bubble.

God, he missed his other states.

* * *

America picked up his list, satisfied to have finished it, until something caught his eye.

_5\. Apologize._

It was written in smaller letters, closer to the bottom than it had any right to be. It looked unimportant, but America knew that this was the key item. Even so, he didn't want to do it. America glared at the word for about a minute and then sighed and pulled his phone out. He typed the number in, hovered above the 'call' button, glared at that too. Who knew that pressing symbols on an illuminated glass screen could matter so much? If you gave something like this to a dumbass kid they probably wouldn't understand; the magnitude of this could only be reinforced by practice.

America sighed and put his phone down, running a hand through his hair and rubbing his nose. He picked up the list, crumpled it with one hand, and then threw it in the garbage.

**Author's Note:**

> A comment would be hella lit. Have a spectacular day and stay safe.


End file.
